New Dark Angels. Another reason to hate GW!

Sure, but they've also shown the ability to go an entire codex cycle with consistent trends (like, say, the removal of units with no miniatures). Seems reasonable to think that many of the last codexes were just place-holders to shore up the perceived vulnerability in their IP until the REAL new book comes out.

I'm a little sad by reading through this whole thread.

I have been away from the hobby since the release of our 7th Ed Codex, which was a good codex for me apart from the loss of unique special rules and named characters.
Sure Wyches can use a boost in wych weapons/ survivability in overwatch. I do find long range AT a little problematic, especially to take out transport and light-medium tanks. We lack a high volume S 6-7 weapon.

The thing I didn't like was that Reavers and Grotesque got buffed to a point that they are a must take unit, as people confirm.

The good about our codex is that more units are viable as before and we can mix it up with cool formations.

I'm now sad that GW apparently wasn't really planning on balancing most codices in 7th Edition. I have to admit that I was more hoping for it, because the blatant buff of Reavers and Grotesques told me otherwise.

What I do miss the most is uniqueness to our army. I would really like to see some effective morale weapons and/or wargear or units that can break morale of the opponent.

Another thing that was clear to me is that 7th Edition is about Ignore Cover, you need it because of jink-saves and how easy it is to get in cover and boost your save.
Sadly we only have flamers and CC to ignore cover, so it was immediately clear that DE would be TIER 1 material.

I don't think the buff to Reavers was an intentional money grab buff. It seems to fall more under the umbrella of 'alter special rules to be closer to existing core rules' and just so happens to be useful (if very different from the way they used to work!).

Grots didn't SEEM like a money grab buff, but I could be wrong.

I doubt grots were a money grab buff because of the fact they didnt make new models for them and made new models for wracks instead.

I doubt anything about our release was a money grab. More likely no one on the gw playtest team plays dark Eldar

I don't think any of them plays competitive. They've stated multiple times that they want a beer and pretzel game.

Thats not really relevant tho. Whether we're competitive or not we still have to be viable in a casual setting, and right this second thats a debatable assertion. We know what points they like to play at, and if someone at GW plays DE they can't be losing every game or they would complain. Thats how casual play works.

That said I want to redress my original statement as I just realized something rather telling. Our only stock formation the KRP when optimized is almost exactly that point total and only has a single squad of hellions as tax and no troops. Its literally the most linearly efficient composition possible from the most linearly efficient codex. I firmly doubt thats a coincidence.

amorrowlyday wrote:

Thats not really relevant tho. Whether we're competitive or not we still have to be viable in a casual setting, and right this second thats a debatable assertion. We know what points they like to play at, and if someone at GW plays DE they can't be losing every game or they would complain. Thats how casual play works.

That said I want to redress my original statement as I just realized something rather telling. Our only stock formation the KRP when optimized is almost exactly that point total and only has a single squad of hellions as tax and no troops. Its literally the most linearly efficient composition possible from the most linearly efficient codex. I firmly doubt thats a coincidence.

Ima need you to unpack that a little further amigo. Afraid I didn't quite follow.

Ah, okay. Well what I'm trying to say is that there is a difference between Competitive play and playing competitively in a casual setting, and while I absolutely agree that gw testers actively avoid Competitive play, they would be doing a rather poor job of playtesting if they weren't competitive in their beer and pretzal play. It's like playing smash brothers, golden eye, Risk, or monopoly, all are decidedly beer and pretzal games, and all are perfectly capable of destroying friendships due to competitive attitudes.

When designing a game with the number of sides we have that competitiveness in casual play is a good thing since it incentivizes everyone to keep some semblance of parity across different factions. Even if that parity is only possible with a single build that abuses inefficiencies in their internal meta.

There are so many possible unit interactions that they couldn't possibly playtest them all, so since we know what points totals they prefer we know some things about their meta, and what sort of interactions they have actually tested and subconsciously balanced around.

From that I am suggesting that if anyone does play DE in their internal playtesting, they probably enjoy blasterborn spam as the main Codex's only formation allows you to take 6 blasterborn units in venoms and a unit of haywire scourges amongst other things without any troops, and comes in just under 1750 points which they reportedly play at.

This would also explain why wyches are so bad: no one at GW actually runs them.

What is this mythical creature, a GW playtester?

Count Adhemar wrote:

What is this mythical creature, a GW playtester?

@ amorrowlyday, I think you are giving GW far too much credit.

Its really very simple... Last time we got our dex GW were going though a nerfening phase. Orks and space dogs got a similar deal. Then GW inexplicably did a complete 180 and began codex creep on steroids... again.

As GW have no idea, or interest, in balance or rules the fear is that we may again get our next dex during another nerfening phase.

Do you think the 7th codex, and the others that fell in the reduced power phase were written under the last regime? Didn't GW bot out their CEO and replace him recently? Can the Decurion era cod exes be the vision of the new regime? If this is correct then they'd have to go back and re-do the underpowered codex's once they've released them all. That or they'll roll out an 8th ed.

Yes they did recently change ceo.

Tho GW has radically changed things in the past without any perceivable reason at all so your guess is as good as anybody's.

I hope your right but I wouldn't rule anything in or out when comes to GW.

GW will Age of Sigmarize 40k before we get a 8th ed codex LOL.

Check your history. They already AoS'd 40k. It's called 4th edition. And AoS will be just like our current state if they last that long. We probably will get an 8th edition codex if they decide to change something structural, though other than breaking turn structure I can't imagine what that would be.

The new RW look great on paper but they aint that bad at all. I played one guy who was running a full 3+ rerollable jinking RW army with 2 fire rapter gunships. I spanked him 8-2 in a tournament match. Max points was 11.

my suggestion is play some games against them before freaking out, dark elder have no issues holding their own. Honestly? I don't want a new codex unless its to bring back a Vect model.

lawlskees wrote:

GW will Age of Sigmarize 40k before we get a 8th ed codex LOL.

You mean like the Horus Heresy game they are supposedly producting right now. http://www.thedarkcity.net/t12682-games-workshop-adapts-horus-heresy

And how exactly did you do that @lawlskees?

Do what? target another unit, hoping to scatter on the unit you ACTUALLY want to kill? yea. the a unit has to be targeted in order to jink. Both my razorwings came in turn 2, he blobbed his bikes up. He had an 11 man deathstar unit with his HQ and that new librarian conclave. I targeted a little 3 man bike squad that was exactly next to it, centering around one of those models. Already...before scatter... the template hit 5 models in the 11 man deathstar. So i unloaded 8 - strangth 6 templates on that one squad, and 4 or so were direct hit and another 1-2 scattered right on top of it. So they couldnt jink and i was wounding on3's because of strength 6 vs toughness 5 (bikes). I killed 8 or so models in that 11 man unit, 5 of which were characters with multiple wounds.

Quote :

So i unloaded 8 - strangth 6 templates on that one squad, and 4 or so were direct hit and another 1-2 scattered right on top of it. So they couldnt jink

You can jink a direct hit

you must declare jinking before rolling to wound and only on the squad that is targeted... right ?

I believe jinking is declared before a shot is fired (to Hit roll)

thenick18 wrote:

I believe jinking is declared before a shot is fired (to Hit roll)

Correct. The "problem" here is than an internet guy uses an anectote to show off and doesn't even relize how wrong it is on many levels.

Quote :

Do what? target another unit, hoping to scatter on the unit you ACTUALLY want to kill? yea. the a unit has to be targeted in order to jink.

He now starts to tell his "story":

Quote :

Both my razorwings came in turn 2, he blobbed his bikes up. He had an 11 man deathstar unit with his HQ and that new librarian conclave. I targeted a little 3 man bike squad that was exactly next to it, centering around one of those models.

So far so good.

Quote :

Already...before scatter... the template hit 5 models in the 11 man deathstar. So i unloaded 8 - strangth 6 templates on that one squad, and 4 or so were direct hit and another 1-2 scattered right on top of it.

So they couldnt jink and i was wounding on3's because of strength 6 vs toughness 5 (bikes).

So. So he targetet a 3 man bike squad and BEFORE scattering he already hit 5 Models in another unit. What kind of magic is this?
Also he unloaded 8 Large Blasts on the 11 man bike squad he did not initially target. And 4 were direct hits while 2 scattered on top of them from...? The 3 men squad he obviously was NOT targeting as he scored 4 hits on another squad he previously told us he wasn't targeting to prevent them from jinking?
So if he was targeting the 11 men squad he could have jinked as he was targeting them. If he was not targeting them he could not have scored a lot of hits as only 2 blasts scattered on top of them.

Quote :

I killed 8 or so models in that 11 man unit, 5 of which were characters with multiple wounds.

So now he tells us that he inflicted at least 13 unsaved wounds (3 bikers and 5 multiple wound characters - so I assumed them to have 2 each)... from what? The 10 hits from the 2 scattered blasts? Or from the 4 direct hits that were not directed at this unit but magically ended up removing models from that unit because he scored a "direct hit"


Story makes no sense... at all.

if you put the centre hole of the blast marker over a model in unit A, but some of the marker touches unit B, then only unit A should be able to jink, no ?

doriii wrote:

if you put the centre hole of the blast marker over a model in unit A, but some of the marker touches unit B, then only unit A should be able to jink, no ?

Correct, unit B cannot jink AFAIK. Only the targeted unit can declare to jink. The unfortunate recipient of a scatter does not get that option. It is considered good tactics to pull something like this off to get at a pesky unit.